Share this:

ALBANY — Upstate Democrat Cecilia Tkaczyk scored a major upset to win a key state Senate seat yesterday after a court-ordered count of 99 ballots that had been challenged.

Her win gives Democrats 33 of the Senate’s 63 seats.

But because the GOP forged an unprecedented power-sharing coalition with the five-member Independent Democratic Conference, led by Jeff Klein of The Bronx — and with Brooklyn Democrat Simcha Felder aligned with the Republicans — Tkaczyk and the other 26 Democrats will remain in the minority.

Tkaczyk won by an unofficial 18votes — out of more than 134,000 cast — over George Amedore in a mostly rural district gerrymandered by the GOP for Amedore’s advantage in last year’s redistricting.

Tkaczyk, a relative unknown running against a state assemblyman, was aided by half a million dollars from billionaire heir Jonathan Soros to advertise her support for taxpayer financing of elections and other campaign-finance reforms.